I have always loved this photo. It was taken in 1961, but feels like it could easily have been taken earlier than that. The juxtaposition of a man on horseback herding sheep against a large – and unusual - manmade structure is very striking. It elicits a sense of either tension or an harmony between the old and the new, or perhaps just the inevitability of change.

The man is AJ “Austie” Hem. It was AJ Helm who sold CSIRO 70 hectares of his 360-hectare property for the construction of a 64-metre radio telescope.

I have drawn people’s attention to this photo many times over the years and usually mentioned “AJ Helm” or “Austie Helm”, without much more thought. A couple of weeks ago it suddenly struck me how odd the nickname “Austie” is. Was it just a twist of Austin or something less obvious. Delightfully, yes.

It turns out that AJ Helm was born on 30 July 1915, to James and Beatrice Helm. Australia was at war and the Gallipoli campaign was underway. There was the constant need to raise funds for the war effort and to try to keep spirits high when good news must have seemed very rare. A Sydney Morning Herald article describes the public meeting at which it was decided to coordinate “a ‘great Australia Day’” to raise funds to “provide comforts and nursing assistance for sick and injured Australian soldiers and sailors”. The day set aside for this ‘Australia Day’ was 30 July, AJ Helm’s birthday.

He was given his father’s name, James, as his second name. In the spirit of the day, however, his parents named him Australia. AJ Helm was in fact Australia James Helm and Austie is short for Australia. So when Australia was looking for a site for a radio telescope, they purchased one from Australia.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Dish a few years ago and staying onsite while we performed a live web gig and recorded a music video. As you step outside and the kangaroos hop through the morning mist and the dish peers over the trees, there is a still a wonderful sense of calm and quiet achievement. I recommend it.

Every day, across the globe, thousands of sporting teams take to the field, court, arena or course to compete in their chosen athletic pursuit. They have uniforms, mottos and songs, and they have names, nicknames or monikers. The Chargers, the Eagles, The Bears, the Flames, the 49ers. At first glance (in Australia at least) there seemed to be a preponderance of animal names, but which animals, from what classes, phyla and families? I crunched some numbers to find out.

I explored a random selection of professional and semi-professional Australian sports teams from a range of sports (cricket, rugby union, rugby league, basketball, Australian Rules Football, soccer and netball) and my assumption that most teams have animal names was correct, but this was not as dominant a feature as I had expected. The graphic above shows how things panned out, beginning with a simple classification as Animal, Vegetable, Physical or Conceptual.

There are some repeated names (seven ‘Tigers’ and four Magpies for example), but notwithstanding that feature, about 21% of the names were non-human mammals; 16% were humans (e.g. Cowboys, Bushrangers, Wanderers); 13% were birds. Interestingly 8% were mythical creatures such as Dragons, Phoenix and Giants.

There were no amphibians and very few reptiles or insects. There were some arachnids (spiders and scorpions), but no marine mammals (although I note that the Frankston Dolphins will return to the Victorian Football League in 2018). Only one team has a plant-inspired name – the Waratahs. It seems that with a slightly broader-minded or more imaginative approach, there are plenty of options available in the biosphere. Conifers, algae (the Kingston Kelp, anyone?), bacteria, epiphytes, marine invertebrates (perhaps the Sea Haven Sea Stars or the Central Coast Krill) and fungi to suggest a few. There are also biological phenomena that might be fun to see. The Evolution, the Plague, maybe even the Mutants.

In my sample, meteorological phenomena represent 5% of team names (e.g Hurricanes, Lightning, Thunder) and numbers, addresses and groups make up similar proportion (City, Capitals, 36ers). Astronomical bodies, such as Meteors, Comets and Suns make up just over 3%.

Of course this is only a small data set and there are loads of amateur clubs that I have not considered (yet), but I now have a greater appreciation of what’s out there and what could be.

Up much too close and personal with Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson) in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rebecca'Long before the creepy clown epidemic, we have all experienced the feeling of “creepiness”, sometimes triggered by a building or a location, often by a person. It might be a neighbour, a TV character or a stranger. Creepiness is quite distinct from fear. The uncomfortable sense that there might be something dangerous or unpleasant in the bushes inspires a completely different felling than that which you experience when you actually see the bear, or the guy holding the knife (or binoculars).

According to the authors of a new study, 'On the nature of creepiness', the uncertainty about whether a theat is real or not (or the ambiguity about what the thtreat might actually be), is central to the sense of creepiness.

Francis McAndrew and Sara Koehnke (Knox College, Illinois) were surprised that, despite the widely accepted experience of creepiness, there were no previous scientific studies exploring the condition. They collated more than 1,300 responses to an online survey about perceptions of creepiness. They found that males are much more likely to be creepy than females and that females often perceive a sexual threat from a creepy person. They also noted that some professions predispose their practitioners to perceptions of creepiness, notably clowns, taxidermists, sex shop owners and funeral directors.

Funeral directors are almost certainly an integral part of a modern economy. Arguably sex shops are too and most people would recognise the scientific benefits of taxidermy. I suspect, however, that most people are uncomfortable with excessive exposure to sex and death (especially with strangers) so people who choose these professions might appear to have slightly different norms to most people, hence a degree of discomfort.

Creepy clown, image by GabboTThen there’s clowns. They look similar to the rest of us, but their emotional expression is disarmingly simplified and usually more extreme, and their behaviour clashes with many social rules. This is the very reason clowns can be entertaining – they are recognisably human, but their behaviour moves beyond socially acceptable boundaries, making them a target for ridicule. They can help us embrace silliness and perhaps make us feel comparatively clever and erudite. Their tomfoolery reinforces the strength of our social rules. The other thing about clowns that might make them especially creepy is that there is clearly someone under the makeup or mask. There is something unseen or unclear, tapping into the concept I described earlier of ambiguity or uncertainty of danger. There’s an interesting article on the history and psychology of clowning in the Smithsonian magazine.

McAndrew and Koehnke identified several characteristics of creepiness, including having unkempt or greasy hair (‘The Ring’, anyone?); having a peculiar smile (e.g. the Joker); very pale skin (like most clowns, Voldemort and Edward Scissorhands); licking ones lips frequently; standing too close to people; and laughing at unpredictable times (e.g. Max Cady).

The study found that hobbies that are seen as a bit creepy include collecting dolls or body parts such as teeth, bones, or fingernails, as well as anything that involved some variation of watching, following, or taking pictures of people. Agreed.

Most respondents (nearly 60%) to McAndrew and Koehnkes’ survey said that they thought creepy people did not know they were creepy. A further 32% were “unsure”.So, perhaps we should cut creepy people just a little bit of slack. Perhaps not.

We’ve had plastics for more than a century. In that time we have identified an ever-expanding list of uses for them and a forever increasing number of different types (although not necessarily in that order). One of the most important practical characteristics of most plastics is that they last. Plastics are not easily damaged by water or air. Microorganisms do not commonly – or readily - break down plastics either and that is a problem.

From the myriad of common plastic items comes a tide of refuse. Shopping bags, food wrappers, drinking straws, soft drink bottles and cosmetic microbeads are distributed far and wide by people water and wind.

None us have never known a time without plastics, but a little over a hundred years is not even a blink of an eye in evolutionary time. Microorganisms simply have not had time (and perhaps reason) to evolve ways of breaking down the vast bulk of plastics. Microorganisms, however, reproduce quickly and there is more some evidence that things might be changing. More . . .

A cyborg may be broadly considered as being made up of part organic and part mechanical components. A favourite concept of science fiction, the cyborg challenges the nature of life and reflects our futile struggle with the limits of mortality and the frailty of humanity. Indeed the extensions and enhancements offered by cyborgism are perhaps only of interest because of human being's frustration and disappointment with themselves.

Cyborgs based on humans feature characteristics that either improve our performance (e.g. faster movement, greater strength) or add completely new capabilities (e.g. ability to see things in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum). Image by Chiaralily

Cyborg systems are typically very efficient, with automation and self-diagnosis common characteristics. This is appealing for its reliability (it just happens) and its speed (it just happens immediately, when needed).

Of course even the most traditional, fleshy humans owe their vitality to systems that operate in exactly this way, and long before mobile phones, pacemakers, contact lenses and Google glass moved us in a cyborgistic direction.

Completely outside our awareness a ruthless bureaucracy of leucocytes monitor extra-corporal arrivals and dispose of any deemed to be deleterious.

Sweat, digest, sneeze, tire, gasp.

Our systems have sub-systems, processes and in-built maintenance processes to minimize the risk of failure, and it is almost always when these systems are compromised, fail to operate properly, or are damaged that we become ill. The automated nature of us can sometimes lead to surprising or unpleasant phenomena. A rapid drop in ambient temperature can quickly give rise to a sensation of all over cold. Even seeing someone else who looks cold can make us share the sensation. When there is disagreement between what your eyes see and what your inner ear’s vestibular system senses, you will suffer motion sickness travel sickness. If your immune system over-reacts to a substance, you experience an allergic reaction.

The vast bulk of our entity is an inextricably intertwined, autonomous system of sensation and adjustment.

Perhaps as thinkers we are arrogant enough assume that if we haven’t consciously thought of something then it won’t or can’t happen, as if our thoughts give life to activity. We seem to have something of an in-build creator complex. We forget that our thoughts are only a small component of a much greater existence, developed over millions of years of trial, error and contextual selection. Our attempts to mimic the automated, self-monitoring of biological systems in robotic or even electronic systems are comparatively limited and clumsy, but then we haven’t had as long to perfect them.